Government removes statement schools are not considered "high risk settings" in guidance.

[IloveJKRowling]

Reported in the TES

www.tes.com/news/Covid-dfe-cuts-schools-arent-high-risk-line-guidance

From the article:
"The government has removed a paragraph from its Covid guidance stating that schools are not considered "high risk settings".

The Department for Education (DfE) previously stated in its guidance for schools that Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) advise that schools are not considered high risk work environments, and it is "therefore appropriate for teachers and other school staff to return to their workplace setting".

But following an update to the guidance today, this detail has vanished."

@HoldMyLobster

But as I said above, wouldn't it make more sense for the government to properly fund the technical requirements for online schooling so that schools CAN do their jobs rather than what's happening now in the UK - people having to isolate, parents having to take time off work, lockdowns, damage to industry, NHS being overwhelmed, people dying unnecessarily?

Well, yes. But the government boxed itself into a corner, because they put all their effort into claiming that schools were safe, so no alternative was necessary (and that it was the unions who were getting in the way of reopening).

Planning for, and funding, an alternative would have required the government to acknowledge that the narrative that they were trying to make everyone believe was not quite true. Which they didn't want to do, because their strategy has all along been assertion and bluster over and above competence and planning.

So we are where we are.

The thing is that schools could have done so much to reduce transmission in schools, except the government forbade everything that might have made a difference. And said there could be no extra expenditure.

So no money to improve facilities.
No money for improved tech
Rotas in school / home learning banned
Use of other community spaces banned
Wearing of masks at all times except for eating and drinking banned.

Why bash the teachers when we have this sort of crap to deal with. The computers that I can use in the morning before school are so old they take about 20 minutes to log into. Then we have to change classes every lesson.
Some rooms have interactive whiteboards. They all seem to work differently and I have no idea how to use an interactive whiteboards (I'm used to a roller board in my lab, and started my education using chalk) and I don't have the time in each room to find out the idiosyncrasies of each.
There are kids missing from every lesson, we are not informed of their Covid status.
It's a shit show.

Why bash the teachers when we have this sort of crap to deal with. The computers that I can use in the morning before school are so old they take about 20 minutes to log into. Then we have to change classes every lesson.

I'm not bashing teachers - I'm disappointed with the UK government for failing both teachers and students.

To be fair hold my cousin teaches in NYC and is having a torrid time so I think US varies a lot from state to state and area to area.

My DSis's DS (Philly) and my DBIL's DD (Alabama) are still 100% remote learning.

@HoldMyLobster

Why bash the teachers when we have this sort of crap to deal with. The computers that I can use in the morning before school are so old they take about 20 minutes to log into. Then we have to change classes every lesson.

I'm not bashing teachers - I'm disappointed with the UK government for failing both teachers and students.

Sorry I misread tone. Yes me too!

Oh yes it definitely varies state to state.

Remote learning is I think still the most common model being used in the US at the moment because cases are so high in so many states. We are able to do hybrid in my state because our infections are very low.

NYC seems to hurtle back and forth between hybrid and remote from what I've seen.

Lobster, very jealous of the 3 days training. We are now doing this. I got an hours 'training' from someone who'd only trialled it once with her classes and couldn't answer anybody's questions. I wasn't told anything useful. I knew more than her and I'd only played around with google classroom for half an hour beforehand. Our Wi-Fi also drops out every 20 minutes or so which means I can either pause the in person kids for 5 minutes whilst it gets sorted or just plough on and hope those at home can cope. With better training and funds for technology I can see it might work better.

Also, if you watch American Factory , you'll see how very very badly teachers are paid and treated in parts of the US! That said, yes, their unions stepped up.

But also hold my Cousin hasn't had much training and doesn't know what she is doing at all. She has a mix of 100% remote 50/50 blended and 100% face to face. It is beyond bonkers!

Our WiFi at school is crap. You have to hold your phone out of a window to get normal phone reception, but that is more reliable than the WiFi. They couldn't connect my own laptop, or my own phone, and have no spare laptops to give me. A fellow teacher and myself played around with cheap webcams and zoom to learn what we could, taking turns to be the students and teacher. Didn't have microphones though, so though we can screen share, students can't hear us! I'm next going to play taking my headphones in which have a microphone on, but that would mean being crouched over the desk as the desktops are on the floor.....

I am extremely shocked at how toothless our unions are being.

CountDuckulasKetchup - yes, the Department of Education gave the schools permission to cut the school year short by 3 days this year to fit it in because it seemed so important for the teachers to do the training.

Also when we first went into lockdown in March the school did an extra day of training to get ready for being all-online. Some teachers were already used to using Google Classroom but others struggled at first.

It was pretty chaotic initially with technical issues, but the teachers and students are settled into it now.

I will also add that it's not perfect. The private schools are doing well out of it because they don't have to follow DofE guidelines and can have all their students back in, and some parents are so determined that their kids will be in school full time that they'll shell out $30k a year.

@Autumnleavestime

I was personally shocked that there wasn't some kind of mass building project over the Summer to get portacabins, extra sinks, even tents set up, using community spaces such as church halls. To assist social distancing. Even fast tracking of TAS. Whenever I've suggested such things I've been asked where would it all come from, where would the money, materials come from.

As a parent you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My school is extremely well run. We're a huge school. We managed to give every year group its own area of the school, it's own playground and it's own access to cafeteria food. We have hand sanitiser and disinfectant wipes in every room, windows that open, a 2m (or close to it) gap at the front of every classroom, AND we had several outdoor sinks put in over the summer. SLT provided visors for every teacher who wanted them.

We still had 2 years shut completely and one half shut by half term.

@HoldMyLobster

Yes, of course that would sense to most of us.

@Nellodee, same for us.

I am extremely shocked at how toothless our unions are being

Unions can only take action about pay and conditions of service.

It's down to government funding, and no doubt CrapGov.UK will say that schools find the money for the wi-fi, etc out of allotted funds.

But surely H&S comes under conditions of service?

The unions absolutely should be able to take action when the health of their members is at stake.

@Namechange5757

The unions absolutely should be able to take action when the health of their members is at stake.

Why are they being so hopeless? Does anyone know? Surely they should be organising strike action.

I think the unions did not fight return to schools in September because risks, numbers and deaths were low just before return.

I imagine they are also trying to understand the figures and new evidence re risk and also the feeling in the profession (teachers in many ways wanted to go back to teaching children face to face) and the public attitude and support for action.

The NEU is calling for a circuit breaker neu.org.uk/press-releases/circuit-breaker-secondary-schools-and-post-16

[quote herecomesthsun]The NEU is calling for a circuit breaker neu.org.uk/press-releases/circuit-breaker-secondary-schools-and-post-16[/quote]
So they've put something on the website. Thats pretty weak. It's hardly being robust in standing up for their members
They are my union and tbh I don't know what I pay them for.

But surely H&S comes under conditions of service?

You'd think so, but it's probably part of general workplace regulations, what used to be the Factories Act.

It might come under duty of care, but again that might not be in the Burgundy Book. I've just looked, it isn't, though 10.1 has interesting things to say about infectious diseases. It's a PDF and I can't cut and paste it:

neu.org.uk/media/42/view

I wondered how long it would be before the unions were demanding school closures.

Given their antics in March when they blocked live online lessons, marking work and any contact at all with DC and parents, they have shot themselves in the foot.

The government will never get schools open again if the bow to union demands here. I would be urgently reviewing the publication of data on schools, with a view to restricting access to government and some headteachers only.

I thought so, it is outside the Burgundy Book, and applies to all employers.

www.hse.gov.uk/workers/employers.html

I would have HSE definitely applies to what's happening in UK schools.